Something for Christmas

oh man that is so awesome!!!Great shot BTW

wow, almost sounds too good to be true.

That is beautiful!!!

When the guy at Petco said it was only $31 bucks, I couldn't believe it either. It just came in from UPS and I grabbed it up right away. We'll see how it does in my tank.

Thanks!

what a shame it will die

there is a guy on my local board that has one Has kept it for almost a year, and it has a ton of new xmas worms coming out of it in the last few days

That will be sweet to look at while it lasts. Take pictures of the progress puhhhlleeease

someone please enlighten me. why is it going to die?

the coral is already dead, but the worms can live.

Why is it going to die? Well they are extremely hard to care for as 100% filter feeders. If you buy your corals at petco the guess is that you do not have the right tank setup to care for. Let alone the extreme bioload it will take to accomplish. A little research goes a long way. This is a nice picture though, good looking worms.

i completly disagree with Stevie.I had my christmas tree rock for 2 years. The porites coral is doing great and the amount of worms has at least doubled...i addition i have a colony of filterfeeding hermit crabs in the coral...

Tankcrazed: What does your feeding regimen look like?

Since the worms are filter feeders, I'd assume something like DTs' Phyto would work?

Yeah, phyto and a boatload of it. If the coral is gone it can be really hard for the worms to survive. It doesn't quite make sense to me but it's what I've seen time and again. Sad thing is that coral is relatively easy to keep if places like PetCo would just buy some freakin lights.

FYI...Even though I purchased it from Petco, I purchased it right after it came off the UPS truck so it never really stayed in the petco's tanks. I was just lucky I showed up when I did. Also, the local Petco store is considered a "magnet" store which I'm told and have witnessed that it's one of the FEW Petco stores that carry saltwater fish and corals. They do have a specialized tank just for frags and corals with proper lighting (T5's). Believe it or not, they even have hired experienced saltwater tank specialists that seem to know half-way what they are doing. I'm definately aware that this is NOT the norm for Petco stores but this one is an exception. By the way, I don't purchase the bulk of my aquatic inhabitants from there but I do sometimes discover a good find there once in a while. I love a challenge and based on Stevie T's remarks, we'll see if I'm up to this challenge;)

I just feed the rarely with roti feast. I think the worms feed mainly on the mucus of the coral and the hermit crabs filter out the fish food with their antennas...Those little guys are crazy.

As your porites seems dead i'd feed them with lots of rotis though

What a shame the coral's dead though...those worms look gorgeous

I want one!!!!!!! :-)

this is gorgeous. I don't know why people say that worms/dusters always will die from starvation? my coco worm poops all the time and I don't dose. Clearly it's eating something.

Guys, look at tube worms, they can reach a plague-like population without targeted feeding. And besides their diet, Christmas tree worms are notably hardy animals that can easily live into their 20's (years)

Also, the worms in the picture are visibly healthy. As long as NanoBite's water chemistry is proper, and he feeds the system properly, they should be fine.

i dont think its too much of an issue of the worms.. but the porities (spelling?) that they live on that often die, and the worms are always soon to go. But i have seen people keep them alive before. Hope it goes well and it is a gorgeous piece